


Fibonacci Can Wait

by crankyoldman



Series: Fractals Series [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, F/M, Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crankyoldman/pseuds/crankyoldman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Judith Gottlieb learns that being exceptional is not enough reason to save anything. And just maybe Randy Geiszler might be right about some things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Associations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious about the kinds of music that went into this, here is a fanmix. https://8tracks.com/cendri/no-sudden-realizations

A lot of people hate Judith Gottlieb.

It used to bother her, when she was a child and they threw rocks, but as she carefully curated orbital shells of numbers about her--IQ rating, degrees, theorems--it could no longer touch her. She avoids stumbling, since the pain in her lower back that spread to her hip and leg has always been there, far as she could remember. People hate Judith Gottlieb because they simply can't touch her.

She hates them back, probably, if she spent the time paying attention to them.

Without distractions, the mess of relationships like a lot of her peers, she can focus on something more. She can focus on the fabric of the universe, the music of calculations, robots that pass the Turing Test and other sorts of things. Important things. There is no lingering doubt in her mind that she will be better than the others, and when her degree is finished and her commendations come back she knows she's right. There are more than one Dr. Gottlieb now and it isn't either of her brothers.

When Judith joins the Jaeger Academy, it has the added bonus of starting a rift between her and her already academically famous father. No peers here to mutter under her breath about special treatment due to Dr. Lars Gottlieb, insinuate that he talks the professors out of yelling; because she can yell right back at them. Most in the academy are training to be Rangers, and she walks as tall as she can until her lower back is practically screaming at her to show them that just because they can bench press her doesn't mean they are somehow _special_ for being physically fit. And just because Dr. Lightcap made the neural handshake and the drift load capable between two people in a fit of sentiment doesn't mean that there isn't work to do.

There is no room for emotion when there are _horrifically giant_ machines that need to be guided to the most precise degree and only ones and zeroes can do the job. She tames all that crap with some sample code, and they provide her a _space_ , her own part of a lab that no one will interrupt her or put their sentimental crap all over.

For the first year, it is a good life, and she is probably happy. 

But Judith could never calculate the sheer stupidity of people nor their decisions, and she is about to go to her section of the lab--that quiet place of reason--when she finds something very, very amiss. Tanks and machine parts littered about, no less than five coffee cups in varying states of drunk, and _heavy metal music._ Not in her space, quite, the Academy has a lot of room but near enough that she can't tune it out, can't unsee, can't _be_ without the presence being painfully obvious.

So when the source of all the chaos revels herself with a big smile and short spiky hair and _tattoos_ Judith marches out of there and files her first of many complaints.

Dr. Randall Geiszler is everything that is wrong with the American education system, and everything that is wrong with people her age in general. She's loud and energetic and completely foolhardy. They go a week where Judith silently seethes in her direction until she finally tries to speak with her.

"Dr. Geiszler--"

"Randy! Everyone calls me Randy."

"Dr. Geiszler, could you perhaps play your satanic noise in your bunk and not in the lab?"

"Why? I mean I can turn it down but it's not like you're in charge, right? Gotta have something to work with, I mean silence is kind of creepy."

Perhaps that would pass for polite in America, but she's from Germany and taught herself a cadence of English from the BBC and isn't going to stand for that sort of nonsense. 

"Silence is required for my work, Dr. Geiszler, and silence I shall have if I have to break your playing device myself."

Judith has always, always been aggressive about boundaries, because boundaries are necessary definitions for any problem, and she spends too much time working on infinity to not set finite boundaries everywhere else.

Dr. Geiszler unfortunately does not agree about the music.

\---

"Judy. JUDY! Hey. Get your head away from the computer and lookit this!"

She sighs, because there is a possibility that Dr. Geiszler is trying to get her to touch something squishy. _Again_. There really is no off switch for the woman except for collapsing, and while Judith is patient, she is not that patient. 

"I am busy."

"No but you have to _see this_."

It has been a year of this; constant interruptions, smelly squishy parts strewn about, and more noise than Judith ever cares to deal with. Every complaint she has made has gone unanswered. The only relief she has is there is a small room that is her "office" when she is not currently connected to the LOCCENT mainframe and she can close the door. Dr. Geiszler never seems to use her "office".

"Fine, I will see it, but you must--"

The slimy _thing_ hits the chalkboard inches from her face and she is so angry that she can't speak English, going off in German at an alarmingly loud rate. Dr. Geiszler is laughing, and Judith swears that one of these days she is going to smack her _in the face_ with her cane to shut her up.

"Judy _your face_..."

\---

There is that month, though, somewhere in their third year of working parallel that Dr. Geiszler is absent, trying to help analyze some Kaiju Blue far away from Lima, in the still recovering Los Angeles. There's rumors that they'll finally get moved to Hong Kong, and Judith finds herself preparing a large case for her own lab in a completely different part of the Shatterdome from her colleague. It's not as if they haven't already moved from Anchorage, given strangely small accommodations once again. 

It is almost too quiet. Complete silence is unnecessary to mathematics; merely the lack of interruptions. Usually there is the whirr of mechanics in at a distance, Lima Shatterdome is hardly the place for inactivity.

Eventually the curiosity overtakes her, and she makes her way--steady taps until she can hear the low mumble of a news broadcast on television. As she gets closer she can see several people, from the newest Academy graduates to the oldest survivors watching silently.

A Category IV has reached Manila.

She finds herself focusing on the statistics: the number of Jaegers deployed, the estimates for casualties, the amount of support troops. Eventually the voice becomes a hollow estimation, and her pulse begins to slow down. Soon the faces around her are only shadows and she can close her eyes and concentrate.

They're going about it all wrong.

These four years she's been in the Jaeger Program's K-Science have been wasted on small measures. It is not better reaction times and minute measurements for the Jaegers... it is the source itself. _The Breach._ Prediction models and simulations for its entire structure... to think she's spent all this time on computer programming that could easily be kept up by other people.

She hurries, fast as her body will allow, to command to request her transfer to Hong Kong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fem!Hermann's name of "Judith" is taken from the German writer Judith Hermann and fem!Newt's "Randall" comes from Lisa Randall, the physicist.
> 
> This story was also started LONG before the DVD extras, so any inclusion of that stuff is purely based on my whims. I do no follow novelization canon. XD


	2. Data

Judith Gottlieb is intimately aware of of the term "hate sex". 

First, it is always consensual; a lack of consent means that something is clearly wrong. She is not an idiot as far as social conventions are concerned, it is more that she simply does not _care_ for them. She will not ever be "nice". So it is always consensual. Second, it is always a brief liason, certainly nothing that need be repeated. Usually it's a release valve or the final nail in the coffin of someone else's perceptions. Cleansing, in a lot of ways.

Judith knows it has nothing to do with her appearance, more the fact she's female at all. The first time a boy kisses her she slaps him across the face, because it is frankly the most illogical response to the situation leading up to it. But upon analyzing it later, she realizes that it's simply the biological answer to the disparity of gender in the sciences.

In simplest terms; there just aren't a lot of women around, and hormones _happen_.

Of course she doesn't always respond to the markers of sexual interest. Judith is selective. Hate foreplay is one thing, and sexual harassment is another thing and she categorizes those quite easily and files the proper paperwork. By graduate school she's surprised to learn that men find her _virginal_ despite the fact that since the first boy, it's simply not true.

She decides that it's best not to talk about her history when it happens. It's fun and strange and maybe inappropriate at times, but it works for her. Maybe it helps a couple of the nicer young men realize that women aren't an alien species. As long as she initiates it and it is received, they can have a fun time. Almost an entire weekend, once.

But it's a diversion, really. Hate and a bunch of hormones are frankly not sustainable.

\---

Data is always hard to get a hold of in peacetime, let alone in wartime.

She spends her first month in the Hong Kong shatterdome chasing the data. There isn't enough funding, even with all the millions being thrown at the Jaeger Program to go and send their own probes out to the Breach. There's always some military or some government that she has to go through. The Russian government, surprisingly is very forthcoming, but their instrumentation is limited. Canada won't return her calls and the researchers down at the South Pole seem to have devolved into anarchy.

It's completely ridiculous, of course.

This is one of those times where people are supposed to work together. But not all things stand united against a common threat outside of the Jaeger Program and other such initiatives. Clearly times are desperate if she--who always works better alone--wants someone to lend her a hand, or some readouts or simply access.

When Dr. Geiszler shows up in Hong Kong some weeks later she isn't surprised, and too distracted by the data predicament to be annoyed. There's something a little different about her, as if she has dimmed somewhat from megawatt brilliant.

"Hey, has anyone... did anyone tell you about Anchorage?"

Judith prickles, instinctively. The few other women in fields such as theirs have always acted as if they had some common familiarity, as if their experiences were the same. And while they share a gender, there is likely nothing similar about what they have gone through.

"No, I've been working on a rather large data problem that if it's not solved--"

"A Jaeger went down. Judy, do you know what that means?!"

Has she really been that focused to have missed that? No wonder no one has come to check in on her lately.

"It means..."

"It means we are probably fucked! It's all over the news, and... a pilot died. The hell is so important that you locked yourself--"

"I'm trying to figure out what is going on before we run out of time. There's patterns to their behavior, there's patterns to the Breach and it's people like you and me that have to stay on it!"

Despite having nothing in common, in a moment of frustration Judith still lumps them together. When Dr. Geiszler starts laughing it takes all she has within her not to punch her in the face.

"Well we're going to need to spend a lot more time on this, aren't we? Though, you know I'm going to crack this first." She grins and Judith can only shake her head and go back to her computer.

\---

"Hey, so some of the J-Tech girls wanna get out on the town. You wanna come?"

"If you believe that we are in fact bonding by virtue of our gender, you would be wrong. I've merely adapted to your presence."

It really was only a matter of time before Dr. Geiszler got the stupid notion in her head. She'd seen it before, in the classes where there would be another woman. From undergrads who thought they were going to be the best friends because she was lecturing. Judith knows from experience that banding together based on shared XX chromosomes is in fact the worst thing to do in a male-dominated environment. Especially when she was used to comments like 'oh, you must have a Father in the sciences'. Of course, Randall Geiszler had been educated in America, where she no doubt engaged in bra-burning or other such nonsense.

"Whoa now, let's tone down the internalized misogyny for a second here."

Bingo.

"I can assure you, were I a man I would also take issue with being roped into socialization based solely on the lowest commonality between me and another person."

Dr. Geiszler looks like she's debating which things to scream first, clenching and unclenching her hands at her sides, looking like a coil ready to spring certain chaos upon everything around her. For a moment, Judith feels almost proud.

"Your favorite Star Trek character is Spock, isn't it?"

Naturally, she would choose a complete non-sequitur to respond.

"No, and why is that relevant?"

"Because even fucking Vulcans make _friends._ "

Judith laughs and shakes her head a bit as Geiszler skips out of the lab, convinced that she made some kind of point. So she's a manic, feminist, _Trekkie_ nightmare. 

\---

She gets the data. Without having to blow anyone. Or call her father.

Not that she would have; Judith has standards. But she was dangerously close to doing any number of other unethical things to get to it. With the disaster in Anchorage looming, governments are more willing to divulge information for the sake of ending the war. And since she has gotten herself off of J-Tech for all intents and purposes, she is trusted more. Faith has been shaken in the human element that controls the giant protectors and part of her--a very small part--agrees with them. If AI technology were up to the speed of human thought she would agree with them more. 

Once she has all the data it doesn't take her long to find the edge of current mathematical definition. Which was to be expected; the Breach is an entirely new and unexpected thing. It's like if quantum mechanics were discovered via a more violent and catastrophic means. Then again, that gave them the atomic bomb, didn't it? She pushes implications aside for the sake of survival.

Judith has to make logical extrapolations instead. Though it feels strange, literally re-writing the laws of physics, she has always been one for inventing things when she reaches the edge of something. It's a slow and deliberate process, but it works. Like the coding for the Mark Is, it _works_.

"Randall, can you look at this for a moment?" she finds herself saying, absently. It's not as if she needs the woman's approval, but if anyone would find the whole in Judith's theory, it would be her.

"Yeah, one sec." Judith doesn't turn around, instead staring at the blackboard, hearing the snap of latex gloves coming off behind her.

"What do you see?"

They both stare, for something like a half an hour. It's the quietest that she's even seen Geiszler, and she's about to be unnerved when the woman finally speaks.

"Judy, did you just fucking define an Einstein-Rosen Bridge for real?"

"It's a Gottlieb Tunnel," she replies, and realizes she's smiling, "colloquially known as The Breach."

"Shit, Judy, how the fuck are you gonna explain this to anyone but me, though?"

Her smile falters. No modeling software in the world would be able to handle this. At least not to the level of accuracy she would need to give a demonstration. Judith loves code, but at least in the case of Jaegers there had been some baseline from her to work off of. She has to start entirely by scratch here. 

She rests her forehead against the chalkboard.

"...I'll get us more coffee."

 

\---

Judith doesn't _really_ mean to initiate hate sex with the intern. He was just _there_. And her coding had been so frustrating. He is very fumbly and calls her Dr. Gottlieb without her having to correct him. And he is 20 at least, right?

She invites him back to her room, because she has no idea what the state of his is and besides she is always more comfortable in her own controlled environment. He won't stop touching her as she tries to unlock her door, which is supposed to be sexy but it just annoying her. She most certainly does _not_ want to have sex in the hallway. 

"Hey! Get off her!"

The intern freezes, looking absolutely mortified. Judith knows that they aren't going to make it into her room now, and she's worked up and irritated now. 

"Dr. Geiszler, I am not being _assaulted._ I can assure you this is a mutual consent situation."

The intern looks even more horrified that she is more irritated than embarrassed. Honestly, _why does everyone assume that she is virginal at her age?_ Far uglier people have had sex before, and while she is very not attractive she is not monstrous.

Geiszler looks at her. She looks at Geiszler. The intern shuffles off, hopefully not to file a sexual harassment complaint. And somewhere likely people are going on with their lives. Judith feels tired.

Judith raises her eyebrow. 

"Cool, ah, I'll go. Stay safe or something."

As Randall walks down the hall to her room, Judith has a brief thought about asking her if she'd like to come in instead. She doesn't weigh those implications, instead going in to read something vaguely erotic and hopefully get some sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think that Judith's prickly "I'm not like other girls" attitude is caricature, let me assure you it is based on my years in a STEM major or jobs. It's an unfortunate defense mechanism that can crop up without you noticing it.
> 
> Randall, on the other hand, probably regularly schooled people on feminist theory because she's a badass.
> 
> While part of me wants to give them a utopia where STEM fields are not awful to women or anyone who is not Those Guys, I think I enjoy much more them navigating it as best they can and being awesome.


	3. Stars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for implied depression.

Judith Gottlieb was going to be an astronaut.

She always gets strangely nostalgic when she is sitting next to a Jaeger, so close she can touch it. It is not too much to say that the tonnes of machinery, the intricate work of thousands of people, birthed originally from two of the greatest technical minds in the world is probably the closest thing she's come to love. Even then it's a difficult ones-sided sort of love, considering that she had never even been in the running to be a pilot.

Most people want to be pilots because of the heroism. They want to not only save those they care about, they want everyone to see it. Not that she can blame them, she knows what kind of mental and physical fortitude it takes to be a pilot for normal machinery, let alone a Jaeger. 

Mark I's make her particularly nostalgic. How many years has it been really? It barely feels like an instant when she was focused on action-reaction of coding verses the mystery and ambiguity of the Breach. In some ways she misses that simplicity, knowing that each day was leading somewhere. To something. She wonders if the ghosts she left in the machine would speak to her, tell her that _yes_ everything will be alright. 

She's been so negative as of late.

Maybe it's because she heard the last of the space stations had been decommissioned. No one around to spend money on the dreams of stars when they lived with the nightmare of the seas. She should go outside more at night and look at them, before it's impossible. She should do a great many things more than what she's currently doing. 

She had wanted to be an astronaut because she could be powerful. And alone. Powerful and alone with just the stars, a path out of the infinite. In freefall without the limitations of the human body, without the worries of the human heart.

\---

"Who died?"

It takes Judith a moment to realize that Randall is serious and not about to drop some kind of punchline.

"No one that I know, personally or professionally." She pauses, deciding to correct herself. "As of lately."

She had to hire some computer graphics ignoramus who isn't even part of the team that created holoprojectioning to finish her model so that she could show it to the top brass. Her presentation is due next week and she's trying her best to forget all the babbling from him she'd had to endure. 

Like anyone really cares what color it is.

"Then why are you so... down?"

She pulls her glasses down and looks over at Geiszler. She's not teasing, but she looks like she's spent the greater part of the day just ridiculously _pleased_. New samples, including a part of a brain which is horrifyingly still _moving_ in its container. A bitter and unfair part of her wonders if Randall even wants this war to end.

"I wish you wouldn't prescribe emotions to my state of being."

"You're depressed or something, dude. I mean you haven't thrown anything at me for like a week."

Judith barely hides the cringe. This isn't too far off from what PPDC Psychological had suggested might become an issue at their last check-in a month ago. If she can do her work--and splendidly at that--what should emotions have to do with it? It's not like she's ever used them for anything much.

"If I throw something at you now would you quit prying?"

Geiszler laughs, mistaking her offer for a joke. "Oh come on, Judy. At least we're not like those idiots who are just waiting around far inland, waiting."

"No, we're waiting on the shore, with open arms. Hello apocalypse, would you hurry yourself up already?"

Geiszler frowns at her. "Hey, don't talk like that. I mean, Kaiju are _super cool_ but I'd rather not stop existing you know?"

Misplaced though it may be, perhaps the only thing that Randall Geiszler has loved are giant lizard monsters, in much the way that she loves Jaegers. Considering what those two groups do to each other, she holds very little hope for their working relationship.

"But if everyone else just went away, what then? If it were just you and your Kaiju."

Randall shrugs. "Gets pretty boring just talking to yourself."

Judith makes a hmmph in the back of her throat, already regretting where the conversation could and is going.

"Thankfully you'll be around here til the end, because you are the most stubborn woman I know."

On that, they can mostly agree.

\---

The top brass like her presentation, despite the bland powerpoint slides. Admittedly the flash of the 3D simulation of the Breach is enough to make them understand the concept, and provide her with some additional funding and official connections with data sources. They can't provide her any more staff, unfortunately, but she can take what she can get.

She smiles and shakes hands with the various important men in the room afterwards, and gets a particularly glowing commendation from Marshall Pentacost out in the barely staffed Anchorage Shatterdome. She'd admired that Marshall's style back when she was in the Academy and can't help but feel a little fluttery in her stomach when she salutes her.

Judith makes it about three steps outside the room when the meeting is over before she collapses.

\---

"Judith, are you _trying_ to kill yourself?"

Dr. Hanoi looks more than professionally annoyed with her. For such a tiny woman she looks rather fearsome. Maybe it's the eyebrows.

"No, I am not. Why does _everyone_ say that. I am merely working!"

The increase in blood pressure that happens when her voice increases in volume makes her dizzy.

"Well, you've been taking care of yourself for shit. And you're supposed to be in for more regular checkups. And all the sitting hunched over your computer is exacerbating your condition."

Judith snorts. Her _condition_ , as if she could forget it. She's long since stopped paying attention to what doctors say concerning it. As a child they were unsure if she would even walk, and she'd proved them wrong. It was just a malformed spine, it wasn't as if she had _cancer_. It was doctors that had compounded the problem in the first place, operating while she was still growing and not considering the gait of her walk. 

"You need low-impact exercise. And about 2000 more calories in your diet. You're far too intelligent to be so unhealthy. I've seen career ballerinas with less issues."

 _And I am no ballerina_ she wants to say, but holds her tongue. A few other petty thoughts come to mind like _is sex too high impact to count?_ and _well no one in K-Science eats well why aren't you pestering Geiszler too?_

"Is that all?"

"No. You also need to take some time off. I've already informed your superiors. Do you have family?"

"Yes but..." it dawns on her, " _no I will not._ "

Dr. Hanoi is not amused. "Most people would kill to get enough time off to visit their family. You need to take two weeks off. Far from this Shatterdome."

Judith sighs.

\---

The only one to see her off to the helipad was Geiszler, because quite frankly no one _liked_ K-Science. They didn't hate them either, but it was hardly cause to be buddies. And most of the J-techs that Randall used to go out with had become shuffled to other Shatterdomes.

"Forced vacation for two weeks. That's... that's rough."

Judith nods. "Make sure to email me any interesting data that comes up while I'm gone. I am not going to fall behind simply because some stupid doctor thinks I'm delicate."

She wants to say to her _can you call me in a few days and make it sound urgent?_ but that was ridiculous. K-Science wasn't even friends with itself.

Randall grabs her wrist before she can start making her way to the waiting helicopter. It's too loud to talk now. She presses a chocolate protein bar into her hand and smiles.

Judith, inexplicably, smiles back.

 _I suppose it's only natural that one must go back to the source to find strength to continue the fight._ It's going to be a long two weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Judith has complications from childhood scoliosis, which mean the limp and the fact she hunches slightly. 
> 
> Randall has a bit more empathy than her male counterpart, mostly due to differences between male and female socialization. Doesn't mean she won't throw down when the situation warrants it.


	4. Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, grad school. This is my last semester, we'll see how often I can get to this. XD

The Gottliebs have always been a pretty normal family.

Maybe they don't emote overly much, but that isn't cause for alarm. Judith is used to would-be suitors and colleagues and acquaintances assuming that there must be something dark or withholding where her family is concerned. Maybe she would be less distanced, less calculating, less something undesirable. It's probably ignorance or a false sort of sympathy that makes them ignore the obvious.

 

She lets them come up with hypotheses. Anyone can do that, but it takes actual knowledge and study to develop theories. Which no one outside of her family has the basis for. Judith lets them try to be concerned about her "obvious" father issues, or "sibling rivalry", or whatever family issue is flavor of the month. They never saw how protective her mother was as she grew up, how her father first showed her the stars, how her older siblings lovingly teased and her younger launched model airplanes with her.

Assumptions only work if they are based on some rule, some evidence. Make the wrong assumptions and nothing adds up. 

So many potential theories are laid to waste because they don't realize that _she_ is the only constant in this equation, the factor that turns the situations on their heads. Judith Gottlieb is not horrible because her family is horrible; she mere _is_.

\---

"Maybe you should join your father, he is doing work for the PPDC too, and from here. You've been so secretive, we've all been worried."

Judith feels like a teenager--no, preteen--again. And this is precisely why she was against this whole ridiculous break idea anyway. Familial love is wonderful and supportive and sometimes completely and utterly wrong about a situation.

"Mutter, please. Not now."

She also feels heavy, like she had been in Hong Kong, but Medical had threatened to add another pill to her daily cocktail if the change of scenery didn't sort things out. So she's sorting herself on her mother's sofa, wishing she had whatever it was that allowed Randall to go on and on without stopping. That's probably a pill too.

Her mother frowns. "I've given you a few days to adjust from jetlag and... well. Do you want to talk?"

"No."

"Then I will wait for reinforcements."

She feels a twinge of guilt, looking at her mother's face. She isn't trying to make things difficult for her, but like most of her life she has. Some of it is in her bones, but some of it is in her nature. She'll never admit to anyone that once she realized she could not be an astronaut she decided that she would be a protector. And her br--no, compromised mental state and body were doing no favors.

Her mother doesn't mean to make her feel small. Judith simply is in her warm presence. 

"I have two weeks here, then I have to be back."

She merely shakes her head, a little sadly at her before leaving her to continue to lie on the sofa. Judith had thought age would have made her less... less sulky about some things. She is thirty, after all. A normal thirty year old would be able to take care of herself.

With her mother out of sight, she resolves to get the hell out of the house before doubtful inner voices shackle her to the couch.

\---

She makes it as far as the roof.

It was a little more difficult to get up here as Judith is much taller than she was when she first found this little place. Only her and her siblings know of it; her mother would insist that she would find her death this way. Judith has never been particularly afraid of heights, and the incline is so minimal that she would have to be on alcohol, tranquilizers, and actually missing a leg to be in any real danger.

This place always had a grounding effect on her in the past, presenting her with the universe while literally still be connected to home. It had not changed as she got further into adulthood, at least until the point where she discovered that if she continued to work with her father she might damage their familial ties.

Distance fixes most issues with people. At least it should.

The skyline has changed, naturally, because of the whole inland migration. Even places along the Atlantic coastline are less desirable now. If it were dark the lights of the city probably would be just too much light pollution for her to get a good look at the sky. It was a tad bit humbling.

Resolutions were not going to come by running away, that much was clear. As a good daughter, she probably should resign her position in Hong Kong. Karla worked with Scotland Yard--a surprise if there ever was one, to fully give up her German citizenship for that--while Dietrich worked at a small school in Bavaria and Bastien hadn't yet given up his garage band aspirations. It was only she that insisted on doing something truly dangerous because of, what? Pride?

Hadn't she _earned_ the right to be prideful? No one questions her father's right to be so; he is simply one of the most brilliant minds in the world. No one complains about him being difficult to work with, or corrects the tone of his voice. Even as he was backing a ridiculously foolish plan because--

Because he is afraid?

She swallows a lump in her throat and pulls out her phone. First step is to get out of Germany. Karla is the farthest away and easiest to reach and well, even if her contact with anyone is sparse, she is her sister. And no doubt she needs a break too. She checks the time to make sure that she won't be calling at an inopportune time; thankfully their timezones aren't as far apart as normal.

"Karla? This is...Judith. I ah, _will ich feiern wie noch nie zuvor_."

"You sound like my sister, but you don't sound like my sister. Are you alright?"

"I've been told that I have to take a leave of two weeks and I am probably going to lose my mind if I stay with Mutter a moment longer."

Karla laughs. "Well you're welcome in my flat. But if we have a repeat of your graduation, my superiors are going to kill me."

"Nothing of the sort. I just..."

"Explain when you get here, alright? Maybe you can tell me what you've been doing for the past year."

Judith nods, even if Karla can't see her. Why was it always so hard to pick up the phone, or dial them on the computer this past year?

"Yes. I'll see you... I'll see you."

She hangs up but doesn't put the phone down. Judith really should be figuring out what to tell her mutter about all this but she finds herself scrolling through a list of contacts she didn't bother to put into her shortlist.

And really, it only takes a couple of seconds to send off a proper text.

_My favorite Star Trek character is not Spock. It is Data._

She puts it in her pocket and gets off the roof. She has a train to catch.

\---

Laying on the floor of the living room of her older sister's flat isn't comfortable, but it certainly beats the feeling she had laying on her mother's couch. Karla is on the floor too. Maybe this wasn't quite the repeat of Judith's graduation celebration, but they probably drank enough to make Karla consider calling in sick tomorrow.

"Alright, so out with it. Why haven't we heard much from you in a year? Are you mad at Vater about his backing the Wall?"

It's a new thing, this Coastal Wall idea. It's quite frankly the stupidest thing she's heard and her father, her _brilliant and legendary father_ has decided that it's 'a much less costly and more long-term plan than the Jaeger Program' as their last email exchange told her.

But that was only three months ago. Karla is talking about the past year and Judith has no ready explanations.

"I don't have to be mad at someone when I disagree with them. I can simply disagree with them."

Karla laughs so loud she snorts and hiccups. She is going to be ridiculously hungover the next day and will probably be sending horrible texts to Judith's phone in retaliation. Gottliebs don't emotion horribly well, but this is partly why funerals are not a temperate affair.

"That is complete bollocks. You almost made an eighty year old professor cry during your thesis defense due to a disagreement."

"I did not almost make him cry."

"You very nearly did. Your entire career is littered with the shells of men's egos. You sucked the very life out of them."

"You make me sound like a harpy."

"I'm making you sound like a complete _badass._ "

It's hard to believe that Karla is older than her sometimes, the way she speaks to her when she feels candid. But Karla doesn't feel as if she needs to constantly assert her intellectual superiority at all times. Perhaps it makes a person younger at heart.

"None of that, I am hardly the sort."

Karla rolls over on her couch and looks down at Judith. "But you are the bravest, you know. A bit self-righteous at times, but I'm pretty sure if a Kaiju came up to you, you'd glare it to death."

Her tone is fond, and it warms Judith just a little bit. Coming from her older sister who is licensed to carry a gun due to the probability of being shot on a daily basis and probably would have made one amazing Jaeger pilot if she'd had the interest, that is quite the compliment.

"Glaring at something like that doesn't exactly stop anything."

"We all do what we can, though, right?"

The subject of her absence in the family's missives is dropped then. Gottliebs aren't supposed to dwell. They're a stock of people that learn to move on. She will too.

\---

Her phone lights up the darkness; time where timezones and a lot of hard alcohol are concerned is utterly meaningless. So she is unsurprised by the text when it comes.

_u rly do have a thing 4 machines, huh?_

Judith rolls her eyes at the phone, despite it being a futile gesture. She's not about to explain herself via something as limiting as a text message. And with Karla snoring on the couch above her--the lazy wench, Judith is going to be sore from being on the floor tomorrow--she's not about to call.

_I have a 'thing' for humanity._

She texts anyway, and then turns her phone completely off. In the darkness she can't make out Karla's face, but she's seen her sleeping before. Just like she's seen Dietrich sprawled out on the floor putting together a train set and Bastien grinning at her in glee as he's just lost another baby tooth and wants to show it off. Her father, stern at times, but always caring despite the difficulties of his all too intelligent family. Her mother explaining poetry to her despite her inability to comprehend.

"I'm only brave because I want a world where you are all safe."

Her whispers go unanswered and unchallenged. It's much better that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: 
> 
> _will ich feiern wie noch nie zuvor_ : I want to party like never before
> 
> Obviously the Gottlieb definition of "party" is only internally ruckus causing.


	5. Patterns

The problem with looking at the universe is the limitation of human eyes, mind, _desire_.

As objective as Judith has always tried to make herself become, there was always that problem of being human. Her biases and experiences always shaded what should have been monochrome, if not quite black and white. She was never a complete _heathen_ in her methodology after all.

Even when transcribed into that one universal language (symbology be damned) there's so many unknowns. Throw humans into it and it is far to messy to even deal with. Like that time she was 19 and met Vanessa The Model, who had kissed her cheek and invited her to a party that she never attended. Or a boy she had kept correspondence with that only went by Newton as if that was cool had failed to reveal himself to her at a conference they were supposed to attend in 2017. She shudders to think what a poet would do to describe these events; isolated and inconsequential.

People want to look and find patterns where there are none, see eyes reflected in nebulae. Judith refuses this, refuses these principles. Replication is not enough, symmetry either. Rigorous attention to structures and systems requires an ability to let go.

Let go, but never surrender, in some cases.

\---

She has known that they've been losing for some time on all fronts.

If Judith were a better person she probably would have taken it all in stride as she did her work. After all, she did manage to get back to the Shatterdome in one piece, and for the past month Randall has managed not to bring up any texts that were sent while Judith was in a strange state of mind in another part of the continent (she always thought that the distinguishing of Europe from Asia as continents to be unnecessary).

Judith is losing too.

It was one thing to find the Breach's location and manner of being, but completely another to turn that knowledge into something useful. Which means trying to predict attacks from giant lizards so they can punch them better with giant mecha.

It gives her a headache, more often than not.

"Hey! ASSHOLE. Yeah you! Why don't you just fuck off, we don't need you!"

Judging by the number of research staff that Randall has cursed goodbye, she has a headache too.

"Honestly, Dr. Geiszler, there is no use seeing cowards off with such profanity."

Maybe she knows, despite differences and dislikes that they will be the last. There is no place for their kind anymore. Judith lacks the access to the stars and Randall lacks the access beyond her feverish imaginings. They are going to be here until the end because they are the guardians, aren't they?

"It's not socially acceptable for me to shake cowards to death."

Sometimes they even use the same terminology.

As much as is objectionable about Dr. Randall Geiszler, there is plenty that almost harmonious. But then, Judith knows that's the end of days, of which there is a finite number talking. Judith hasn't tried to calculate that, because the notion is frankly an exercise in sorrow.

"It's not socially acceptable for you to shake anyone to death, Randall."

She shrugs, and turns on some music, at a volume which is just a decibel below what Judith would complain about. Judith knows that soon enough, they will _be_ the research team. It's fitting, really, if she were the sort to try and ascribe some kind of meaning to it.

They were born into the generation at the peak of a slowly spreading economic depression that no one in the so-called civilized countries wanted to recognize. Judith remembers the scrutiny of constant surveillance. She bets that Randall was one of those protestors in America that barely avoided becoming a statistic.

In some ways, a common world enemy was precisely what the world needed to get over their differences, if only for a while. But those differences are starting to come up, crisis be damned, and Judith had hoped they would have at least _beaten_ them by now.

"Hey Judy?"

She hasn't even noticed that the music had been turned down, so lost in her own musings about governments that even her vast intelligence can't understand fully. Like all of human nature, she is but an observer, not a participant.

"Yes?"

"You think they'd ever use us as pilots, hypothetically speaking, if it all came down to it?"

Judith shakes her bangs--about time for a trim, really--out of her eyes. "Whatever makes you think we'd be Drift compatible?"

"Who the hell else would be? I dunno, it was just a random thought, go back to muttering at chalkboards."

The music comes back on and Judith tries to remember that she has to breathe.

\---

Judith notices patterns in those that are leaving to go further inland. Randall has special curses for each of them, but she merely finds herself becoming more and more pensive.

Her statistics haven't been lining up for some time, so she makes other ones to fill the time. Patterns aren't exactly hard to notice. Family is always a factor; either they are creating some or are finding it unbearable to spend time outside of it. The only families the Shatterdome retains are forged within it. It took her embarrassingly long time to realize that Mako Mori, that graceful steel-tempered young lady and Stacker Pentacost were one of those strange familial units. Now she can't help but see it in everything they do, the small smiles that Stacker gives her daughter and the starry-eyed determination of Mako to please her adopted mother. If not for their appearances it would be hard to distinguish them from any other biological imperative family unit.

The Kadanovskys came only a year ago, and Judith has finally determined that they are married, not siblings. Why they dye their hair to match is anyone's guess, but there are ways to their manners that belie a closeness resulting of a harder sort of intimacy than accident of birth. The J-Tech staff that came with them from Russia seems to hold them in some esteem as almost-parents. The Weis are simply home, no need to change. Various others have been making bargains with each other in quiet stairwells and significant looks in the mess hall.

Judith wonders what exactly makes her stay. She has no family here; hers is back in England and Germany, mixing feelings of infuriating frustration and complete adoration. Even as she has distanced herself in all of this important work, she has not created her own. Far too old for any sort of liaison that would produce offspring--that and the very thought of pregnancy makes her ill. Has she made any friends in all this time, aside from whatever it is that Randall keeps attempting...

"Where's your buddy, Dr. Gottlieb?"

Tenda Choi, that unmistakeable J-Tech is giving her a curious expression. Somehow Judith has wandered into a mostly abandoned--and thankfully quiet--LOCCENT despite a trek that she was sure was going to lead her to a Jaeger bay.

"My buddy?"

"Yeah, Randy? Always figured you two always travelled in a pack."

Judith blinks at the woman. Tenda, not unlike K-Science, has many rumors circulating about her. But then, attractively gender-nonconforming sorts that use feminine pronouns out of spite probably get rumors more out of jealousy than the hatred that K-Science can sometimes get.

"We most certainly are not a _pack_ , Ms. Choi."

She can't help but feel a little bit of that jealousy herself; when she was younger and attempting a more masculine look in order to blend in with her peers better she never could quite pull it off the same way Tenda does suspenders and a bowtie. Which are far more ricidulous than anything she wears, Randall's comments be damned.

"Then what brings you up to LOCCENT? Not much action right now."

"Sometimes I like silence. The lab fails to provide that about 78% of the time."

Miss Mori's work on Gypsy Danger is almost finished, from what she can tell from the window here. Judith hasn't bothered to get the complete scuttlebutt on why they revived that particular Jaeger when there are plenty rotting in Oblivion Bay that would suit. She splays her hand on the glass and probably for the first and only time wishes she knew what it was to have enough trust from a support staff and co-pilot in order to be in one.

"Yeah, Gypsy was one of my favorites too. Used to know the pilots back in Anchorage. Good guys, shame what happened to them."

"It's not my favorite." She's never been able to pick favorites where Jaegers are concerned.

"Still. She's looking good, right?"

A fallen and failed Jaeger resurrected for purposes unknown. Judith can relate. She swallows.

"Where is your family, Ms. Choi?"

The startles a short laugh out of Tenda. "Well here, Dr. Gottlieb. Allison works the floor, and there's all sorts of techs... isn't yours?"

_Who the hell else would be?_

"Some of it, yes."

\---

When she returns to the lab Randall has sketched something out on one of her empty chalkboards. It looks like a circuit diagram of some kind, with other sorts of ridiculous drawings involving poorly rendered Kaiju and what must be Randall's cartoon alter ego.

"I just had the best idea, Judy. You're going to love it, it's going to be so badass."

Judith can't help but feel some kind of dread at her energy, some fear in the manic sparkle in her eyes. Her resolve to be the wedge in the gears of chaos will not waver. If she cannot predict well enough to certainly she can certainly stop that which is foolhardy as they enter the final stages of the war.

"Somehow I think I'm going to hate whatever you're proposing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tenda Choi is my hero, FYI.


	6. Solutions

She has never _ever_ been prepared.

She can predict, and she can plan, but preparation requires a will to act. A will to actually make something of the information at hand in time. Time is never on her side and it shows. All of her discoveries, groundbreaking as they have been never quite got past ideation. It is only now that she has begun to hand things off to the next person. That this strange representation of the human race has begun to work. 

But what is she to do when the next person is _Randall?_

\---

Judith is singularly angry, scared, and helpless.

She knew, in the furthest corner of her mind that Randall would go through with it, or else she wouldn't have spent the time correcting her circuit diagrams. Judith bloody well headed the programme that created the entire Drift-to-mechanical conversion and if Randall was going to theorize wildly about--

No, Randall doesn't theorize. She simply _does_. 

"R-randall? Are you... what did you _do?_ "

She should be better at surprises by now. Monsters rose out of the damn ocean! She should call Medical or a tech or any number of people that are trained to handle emergencies--because this is an emergency, Randall is _seizing_ which is not a thing that people who are in their mental faculties do--not kneel down in a manner that is that she will regret hours from now, practically lose her shoe and try to find a way to remove this homebrew cranial interface cap from her colleague-- _friend_ \--without doing more permanent damage.

"They were supposed to stop you from doing this, why are you so _stubborn?!_ "

It's not a huge realization she's having as much as the feeling of drowning, because truly they will all be lost if this woman dies right here, or God forbid her brain ceases to function. They have been left by the Authority, they have been left to die first against the invasion force, cannon fodder and it will not end like this. It will not end like this. There are many more arguments to be had--many more lives to save because they all need saving--and she _will_ look up at the sky again without sadness and instead possibilities and she _will_ bring this woman, bring Randall, bring her singularly most Drift compatible partner at the end of all things along with her _if it kills her._

Anger propels her, like it always has when things have seemed their most hopeless. She has never been good at inventing hopes as much as beating them into submission.

"G-get.... you have to get the Marshall."

Judith almost falls over, cries, or slaps Randall when she speaks. She settles on gaping at her. 

"You are in no condition to--"

"Get the Marshall!"

Judith can see now that Randall's usual twitchy demeanor has been amplified. Or no, she's shaking and muttering unintelligible things. Her clear outburst almost seems like a fluke in light of these facts. 

But defying all logic, or reason, Judith goes and gets the Marshall.

\---

Randall's face looks betrayed when she calls her ideas impossible. Has Judith always been betraying her, or is this a new development? Judith is so used to shooting down the fantastic so that it can be managed and understood that she is almost more gobsmacked by Randall's face than Pentacost's decisive swing at their argument.

The only truth now is that yes, it is no longer the time for theories.

\---

When Randall has been sent on her fool's errand by Pentacost--steadfast, maddeningly righteous--Judith allows herself a moment to cry. In all this time she's suppressed that most natural of human release valves because honestly, if she ever showed any emotion it was always tied to instability in the eyes of colleagues and she wouldn't give them the satisfaction. 

All that comes out is a small sob. And then a hysterical laugh at ridiculousness that is the fact she has _forgotten how to cry._ Here, alone in a lab and potentially for the rest of time, she has become exactly what she hates; emotional, hysterical, and unable to focus past a conversation that happened only minutes ago.

The impulse to run after Randall and insist that she come too, that if they are to die they are going to do it _together damn it all_ is strong. But like the tremors in her hand and the slight tunneling of her vision, it passes.

Everything passes. 

The walk to LOCCENT is brisk, and she has decided to go there only after she's begun walking. Judith is useless in their laboratory cave with her numbers, she has to see what is going on, be able to relay any information that might be useful to those standing most directly in front of their apocalyptic cannon. 

She is not the only one busying herself, trying hard to be useful and supportive while others do the fighting. It is probably the purest form of Randall's character that she is in the thick of it. 'Rock Star' is just their generation's term for 'hero' after all.

Judith hadn't really said goodbye, had just barely fumbled out a 'be careful' before Randall had tumbled out in the rainy Hong Kong streets. And what would she have said?

To her left, a janitor and a deck crew woman hold hands, heads bowed together in a conversation that looks an awful lot like a prayer. She almost wants to stop, either to stare or join them or something. It is the first moment she has keenly missed her family, and were Randall there they would... She doesn't know. She continues past other people's moments. Anger will have to propel her even more.

_It took me almost losing you to acknowledge that you are important in my life, a constant that cannot be replaced. If you actually go and get yourself killed now, should the rest of the world be saved, it would be my greatest personal loss._

She closes her eyes, stops for a moment, and lets it sink in. LOCCENT isn't far now, and she knows it will only be seconds that she can pause like this, in silence. There are no grand revelations, no epic overtures to feelings or relations. Just that when she is asked to jump after Randall, she will follow. 

She can only hope that Randall would--will--do the same in the future.

\---

_They're adapting._

Randall's words came out of her mouth, but then she had absorbed some of her ramblings after all this time. Maybe she didn't hold to the same theories, but any intelligent person could see how the development of specialized weapons would only spell trouble. And at the rate they will come...

\---

The next attack will be three.

The number floats in her consciousness, like an irritant. There are smiles and patting on the backs and cheers happening around her, as they stand out on the helipad. They have already taken down two Kaiju. There will be three.

They aren't done yet.

Pentacost raises an eyebrow when she looks at her. Judith is practically vibrating. Gipsy Danger is alright, but they've already lost half of their Jaeger force. 

"Go to Doctor Geiszler!"

If she could bet anything, Randall was going to be in the middle of the action, right where Otachi had been taken down. She only hoped she was right.

\---

Judith arrives just in time by helicopter to see the aftermath of an _infant_ Kaiju and its apparent mother, their bodies from the air a strange tableau and on the ground made real as mountains of rubble and destructive force finally at rest. 

She shudders a little, once she gets her footing on the ground. She's thankful that she didn't have to see them alive.

"Judy?! Oh good, there you are, I need to set this up give me a hand."

Randall's alive and already unpacking the Drift interface that technicians ahead of her had brought. Judith finds herself wanting to say something, but unable to find the words. 

It's a shame they don't have time for a proper PONS setup. She tries not to runs the statistics on their likelihood of--

_PONS is a system that works best with two people. And we are clearly Drift Compatible._

Judith is distracted by a call from LOCCENT. Already there are Kaiju coming out from the rift. But. Two? It's not right. And Randall is arguing with her over it, because clearly they can't. Just. Wait.

The numbers will have to wait, because she cannot let Randall do that again, and she's already calling up the routine on the command line, _at least she made sure to use the right PONS code, this is the latest patch_.

It is exceedingly awkward to have it made known that someone is important to you through tense world-saving moments, but even before they Drift Randall _knows_ , it's written all over her face and Judith doesn't want to analyze it, is terrified, is not going to go into it. She's never been able-bodied enough for piloting, so it's not something she's ever considered and oh _hell_ this cap feels strange, this is going to hurt and she wants to back out, if she loses her brain then what is left, truly? 

Randall hits the button and she is pretty sure she's dying.

\---

There are no revelations, there is _every_ revelation and she has no idea how pilots can do this with another person because it is violation, it is invitation, and it is definitely going to send her back to therapy. The Drift is the worst kind of silence and she is grateful there are more important things to deal with than the thoughts that have leaked out of her own head.

\---

She goes back to the lab after it all, because Judith doesn't quite know what else to do. Randall had acted like it was all a big party, but she hadn't anticipated that this would be so suffocating, the notion of the future being given _back_. Maybe she hadn't thought it would actually happen?

Or, as the sinking feeling in her gut tells her, maybe she had hoped that _she_ wouldn't have a future.

Now that the heady joy of victory is gone, and it was gone too fast, Judith has to think about what is next. There is nothing that can be measured, nothing that can be predicted in this way. There is only the beating of her heart and the meaningless numbers on the board.

"We have to _talk_."

As mystical seeming as the Drift itself was, there is no lingering magic between them. Only a sense of profound empathy and the tone of Randall's voice almost makes her cringe.

"I suppose we do."

Randall stands on her side of the line, fidgety and _filthy_ , they must both look quite frightful after the day they've had. Judith gets up to meet her at this most silly and significant of middles. 

Judith clears her throat. "Where would you like to start?"

"Dude, you made out with a _model_ once?"

And Judith, as they both laugh, can see it. Can understand. Has the missing variable in this entire equation and can see all the times that Randall has reached out. So Judith reaches out too, across the line and sets Randall's head upon her shoulder.

_Yes, the future can wait. We have time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around, those that have. Had some major stuff come up between the last posting and this one, and I'm so glad to be finished with this story! I may come back to this universe and deal with some of the before and after issues in other stories. But this one is done. I may go back and rewrite parts of the first chapter because I don't feel it fits the rest of the story as much anymore? I don't know. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
